The European Union is ready to begin commercial arbitration with Ukraine to lift a moratorium on exports of round timber as the one violating the Ukraine-EU Association Agreement, Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze has said. “Unfortunately, Ukraine really violates the Association Agreement with the introduction of the moratorium on round timber exports. This obligation will be considered as part of commercial arbitration. And the European Union is ready to start this arbitration between Ukraine and the EU,” she said at a briefing in Kyiv. According to the official, the lifting of the moratorium is excluded from the list of conditions for provision of macro-financial assistance by the European Union.
Speaking about the implementation of other provisions of the macro-financial assistance, in particular, the launch of automatic verification of electronic declarations of politicians and officials, the deputy premier said that coordination between various departments is underway to soon come to full ability to conduct automatic checks.
“The only problem that I see at the moment so that this system could work is changes in the legislation. The draft law from the government has been considered by the Verkhovna Rada for a very long time, maybe more than a year, the bill that regulates the automatic connection of the NACP (the National Agency on Corruption Prevention) to different registers,” she added.
Nibulon will invest $19 million in construction of a river transshipment terminal in Ternivka (Zaporizhia region).
According to a posting on the company’s website, the launch of the terminal is scheduled for June 2019.
Along with the terminal, the project envisages construction of a berth of over 3 km long and dredging works on the Ploska Osokorivka River.
The company said that the terminal will hire 120 employees and will pay over UAH 2.7 million of taxes to the local budget a year.
The terminal will be third for the company in Zaporizhia region.
Nibulon was established in 1991. It is one of the largest operators in the grain market of the country. Nibulon cultivates 83,000 hectares. It exports agricultural products to more than 60 countries of the world. The annual export volume exceeds 4.5 million tonnes.
Ukraine, Poland have agreed on the preliminary exchange of 160,000 licenses for transportation by road in 2019, Ukraine’s Infrastructure Ministry has reported after a meeting of the Ukrainian-Polish mixed commission for international road haulage held on October 10 and October 11.
“The sides will hold a regular meeting of the mixed commission in the first half of 2019, where a decision will be made to establish the final quota,” the Infrastructure Ministry said on Friday.
In particular, there will be universal licenses for of the categories Euro-1, Euro-2 and Euro-5 – 10,000 each, Euro-3 – 50,000, Euro-4 – 20,000, and transit categories of Euro-3 – 25,000 and Euro-5 – 35,000.
According to the report, Ukraine also agreed to obtain from Poland an additional 10,000 licenses (8,000 transit and 2,000 universal) for this year, which will increase their number to 216,500.
The Infrastructure Ministry said that Poland again insists on reducing the 2019 quota to 130,000. However, this does not meet the needs of Ukrainian haulers. “Our position in relation to this proposal was unambiguous – we do not agree to any reduction of the quota!” Director of the Strategic Development Department of the road market and road transport of the Infrastructure Ministry Viktor Sasin said on Facebook.
The ministry said that the meeting on the quota increase for 2019 will be held after evaluating the effectiveness of the use of already issued licenses.
Cattle numbers in Ukraine as of October 1, 2018 amounted to almost 3.862 million animals, which is 4.1% less than on the same date in 2017, the State Statistics Service has reported. At the same time, the number of cows by the specified date decreased by 3.5%, to 2.018 million animals.
According to the state service, on October 1, the number of pigs decreased by 4% compared to the same date last year, to 6.463 million animals, sheep and goats by 3.2%, to 1.516 million.
The number of poultry in the country increased by 2.2% compared with October 1, 2017, amounting to 238.816 million birds.
Ukraine boosted exports of poultry meat and offal products by 14.9% to 243,720 tonnes in January-September 2018, Ukraine’s State Fiscal Service said on Wednesday.
Such exports in monetary terms increased by 29.3%, to $381.12 million, the State Fiscal Service said.
Imports of poultry meat and offal products in January-September 2018 increased by 24.4%, to 99,120 tonnes, such imports in monetary terms grew by 22.5%, to $39.23 million.
Exports of pork in January-September 2018 declined 65.5% year-over-year, to 1,490 tonnes. Pork exports were estimated at $3.2million against $9.2 million in the nine months ending September 2017.
Pork imports to Ukraine over this period soared by 6.2 times, to 19,670 tonnes. The country imported pork worth $36.79 million against $5.91 million in January-September 2017.
TIS container terminal (Odesa region) in January-September 2018 increased its cargo turnover by 54% compared to the same period in 2017, to 78,200 TEU, the company has said. “This is the result … of investment in the amount of $52 million in the installation of two new STS cranes, the launch of weekly container trains to Kyiv, Dnipro, Kharkiv, and Ternopil, increasing berth 22 to 600 meters,” the company notes.
TIS added that the launch of new Maersk ME-3 service and the high processing speed of 5 STS re-loaders also contributed to the rapid growth in container handling. The TIS group of terminals is the largest stevedoring operator in Ukraine. Cargo turnover in 2017 amounted to 26.012 million tonnes. The depth of berths near the terminals ranges from 15 to 16 meters, the total length of the eight berths of TIS exceeds 1,800 meters with the prospect of expansion by another 1,500 meters.
